Late transition metal (LTM) hydroxide complexes have been described as environmentally friendly complexes that can act as versatile synthetic reagents. (Reference 1) Such synthons have permitted the isolation of a large number of products through simple environmentally benign reaction chemistry. Amongst the LTM, no examples of mononuclear linear copper and silver hydroxide appear to have been reported and only three examples are known for gold; these all involve gold (III) metal centres. (1-2). Gold (I) is of interest as it finds increasing use in organometallic chemistry, homogeneous catalysis (3) and medicine (4).